The Wreckage After

I flicked through photographs of ice shelf in the harbor bay. Debris of winter stood stacked against the walls and the December sun paled my body logged along the beach. Barrel-chested shellfire water rushed in to break the shore and wash away the land. I remember how you leaned on my arm as once I watched you lean at the window, unmoved by fears that lurked in the darkening kitchen at sundown.

Dark is the beginning and the end of our reign.

Dark is the beginning.
Dark is the end.
The tide forgets,
The hourglass bends.
No answers rise,
Only silence descends.

Those were the days of comets in the air, marvellous tempests, sights of the sea, in which we had lost the childish ambition of horizons beyond dunes, movements of sea grass at their rims. Waist-deep in the depthless element, all time must stop, before we spiral down the hourglass to places where the laws of gravity don’t hold and which the tide forgets as morning fades.

Love is a space where neither loss nor sorrow figures. Our whispered confessions hung in sleet-whipped air waiting for an answer that would never come.

Comets in the air.
Tempests in our veins.
Horizons vanish.
The ocean remains.
Love dissolves.
The tide refrains.

Fog rolls in, thick and blind.
Dreams dissolve, unrefined.
The ocean hums, the past unwinds.
Dark is the beginning, dark is the end.

The fog rolled in like the rich silk of a knee-length dead man’s coat and covered land and sea. We blew the foam off hollowed-out reeds with eyes a deeper yellow than the winter’s sun. We filled our hungry hearts with blue and white. Soon my bones will form a parenthesis on the sea’s black bed like her, cracked ribs of a washed up wreck, the canyon’s carved evidence. Only the ocean stays alive with its moving atomic monotone while the world dissolves into a nightmare of an alternate geography.

Dark is the beginning.
Dark is the end.
The tide forgets,
The hourglass bends.
No answers rise,
Only silence descends.

Our meetings here just leave desire’s fleeting trace, a sporadic and arbitrary continuity of life. And dark is the beginning and the end of our reign.

Soundscapes Of Life

why do they keep coming:
radiant darks of minds paused to the desolate given,
dreams unborn into atmosphere, hanging in humid air,
their silhouettes waver like half-formed constellations.

you said:
for your thoughts
you said,
you said:
for your thoughts

I listen to the rhythm of metalworker songs,
to the clang of steel, sparks tracing time's decay.
I hear the dialects on b-ball courts,
echoes of joy and loss carved into the asphalt.
I gather my sea of telluric pain every day,
pulling tides that crash against unseen shores.

what follows:
no dusk, no dawn,
what follows:
no dusk, no dawn

only this passage of phantasmal light,
where shadows speak louder than voices.

I trace the edges of what remains,
words unsaid, dreams discarded in the haze.
Who listens to unsung hymns,
the weight of what we couldn't begin?
Do you feel it? The tremor beneath,
a rhythm buried, a pulse beneath grief.

what follows:
no dusk, no dawn,
what follows:
no form, no sound,
only this tide of spectral light.

And still, they keep coming,
the radiant darks,
the dreams we left suspended,
the passage that never ends.

Thirty Years Of Falling (For Jenna)

the harder you try,
the lighter your soul;
the lighter your soul,
the stronger you climb

and when you fall
through space and time,
through clouds and stars,
you fall for days and weeks
and for a whole life long,
until you slowly forget
that you are falling at all

and while you
pull in your arms,
pull in your legs,
into a foetal position,
fall back through the years
with eyes squeezed shut,
you might ask yourself:
was it a mistake to climb?
was it a mistake to try?

the harder you try,
the lighter your soul;
the lighter your soul,
the stronger you climb

I can’t stop wondering:
if you fall forever
and never touch down,
is it still falling
- or is it flying?

Winter Hands

On blue crystalline plains,
where the echoes of footsteps linger,
I edge closer to the crowded corner of my mind,
where happiness hides behind closed doors.

I am alive,
the long-ago girl watching her tiny hands—
small black dots,
punctuation in a story unfolding too fast.

Now I paint pictures in the snow,
hands moving like whispers,
chasing shadows
until they stretch too thin.

An electric cross on the west façade,
winter light casts chrome and scars.
The rhythm of healing, the rhythm of loss,
how long can I hold this fleeting gloss?

It took years to convalesce
in pulsing rooms of sound,
my bones trembling,
at the tabernacle of days made from dust.

Far above, the crescent moon,
cratered by imperfection,
smiles like a sliver of light cut
from the night’s cabochon sky.

And when I raise my eyes,
knells hang upside down,
swallowing their bronze tongues.
Still, I hear you calling.

An electric cross on the west façade,
winter light casts chrome and scars.
The rhythm of silence, the rhythm of sound,
how long can I stand on this fragile ground?

It was you that came for me,
like Jesus of the moon,
your smile pale and paper-thin,
a gift in a darkened room.
The night held its breath,
the snow whispered prayers,
and for a moment,
I wasn’t alone there.

An electric cross on the west façade,
winter light burns chrome and scars.
The rhythm of longing, the rhythm of grace,
how long can I stay in this sacred place?

On blue crystalline plains,
where shadows stretch and fade,
I am still alive, painting pictures in the snow,
punctuating the silence.

Another Round Of Peekaboo

Red light spills across the room,
A shadowed space, an empty bloom.
Nine floors high, the stillness stays,
I face the glass, it turns away.

A spoon lifts heat against my lips,
The burn still lingers as it slips.
Across the street, the curtains sway,
A flicker of life begins to fray.

Smoke crawls low from hidden flames,
The air holds weight that has no name.
The floor leans back, the line runs thin,
Would they notice if I disappeared again?

And another day will come,
Another round of peekaboo.
Yellow squares climb building sides,
Who am I waiting for?
Another day will come,
But will it pull me through?

The neighbors pound their broken beat,
The echoes tangle at my feet.
I sit on crates, their edges worn,
And wait for time that won’t be born.

My body feels like liquid glass,
Suspended time I can’t surpass.
I wait for words to shape the air,
But silence lingers everywhere.

Yellow lights on fractured walls,
Fire escapes where the lost ones crawl.
The night moves on, it swallows care,
Does it matter if I’m anywhere?

And another day will come,
Another round of peekaboo.
The smoke climbs high, the mirrors fade,
What’s left of me to hold?
Another day will come,
But will it break the cold?

Sometimes I’m shapeless, drifting far,
A whisper caught between the stars.
I want to say, “I needed you,”
But the room absorbs what’s left of truth.

And another day will come,
Another round of peekaboo.
Yellow lights climb through the dark,
But they never call my name.
Another day will come,
But will it leave a mark?

The calendar turns; the numbers fade,
Ashes of days I can’t replay.
Another day will come,
Another round of peekaboo.
And the mirror waits for me.

We Have Always Lived In The Dark

noontime shadows of arched windows
crawl with intent across the ground,
unseen contours of hallways we trace with fingers
in cracks where brick grinds against brick
in unmeasured angles of wall meeting wall,
darkening the waxy sheen of deadly nightshade
that blooms not only in our hearts

drops of tears and drops of blood,
the ring of mad laughter ebbs and flows
between those charcoal chambers,
faded echoes of voices and screams
still rebound in crumbling fireplaces
grown chill with unused decades,
singed confetti snippets still float
through corridors of yesteryears

We.
Have always.
Lived in the dark.
We have lived in the dark.
The dark.

the only thing that ever makes sense,
the only peace in life we might find,
we will find here, between the dust,
with our imaginary friends long gone,
dreams burned and inspiration drowned,
we try to struggle through the floorboards
back to a callous life once more

We.
Have always.
Lived in the dark.
We have lived in the dark.

We.
Have always,
have always.
Lived in the dark.

we lived where every neurotic thought
and each suppressed manic impulse
is either fear or hope and never joy,
but lost, this nightmare was for us
a curious avidity, a deep demand,
and were it possible to live it again,
we would and would not hesitate

We.
Have always.
Lived in the dark.

We.
Have lived.
In the dark.
In the dark.

We.
Have always,
have always.
Lived in the dark. '
The dark.
Will never.
Go.

the house will follow us
until we come upon it once again
waiting for us in the mist

This Lucent Skin I Wear

When morning slaughters the night,
With a woman's sigh, velvet and soft,
Death makes love weak and strange,
Your glance meets mine, we tangle in sheets,
Nameless acts, we give our bodies freely.
If I were a dream made of water,
I’d unravel into another life,
A liquid river, roaring far from here.

Whether or not I press into you,
Feed you from my side,
Whether or not I give you my words,
Sugared with everything I can’t say.
The road where you are is where I lend my skin,
Before love’s final urgency, another night.

I’d push my face into your neck,
As the wind moves, kissing like a ghost.
The moon spins, fickle and distant,
And love is just another fleeting thing.
You tear pieces of me, as if they’re yours,
And I let you, with every breath,
Because that’s how we exist—without names.

Whether or not I press into you,
Feed you from my side,
Whether or not I give you my words,
Sugared with everything I can’t say.
The road where you are is where I lend my skin,
Before love’s final urgency, another night.

A woman’s moan in the early light,
Velvet and brief, like a whisper of life.
I lend you everything I have,
Before I dissolve into the river,
Before the moon shifts again,
And leaves us behind.

Whether or not I press into you,
Feed you from my side,
Whether or not I give you my words,
Sugared with everything I can’t say.
The road where you are is where I lend my skin,
Before love’s final urgency, another night.

While Your Lips Are Still Red

Air moves in to fill the spaces
Where your body has been,
In the gloom of a deepening night
I meet silence with silence
And no one but me could see your name
Tattooed in ink the colour of my skin.

The air is heavy where you lingered,
Shadows trace what’s left behind.
Your name, a secret carved in silence,
A memory etched into my mind.

While your lips are still red,
The night holds its breath.
Every space whispers you,
A shadow, a thread.
While your lips are still red,
I chase what the silence said.

While your lips are still red,
The ink fades into my skin.
Your name is a ghost I carry,
A mark I’ll never rescind.
While your lips are still red,
You haunt the air again.

The Whispering Stone

Cold gray hands, etched with time,
Names that fade, stories align.
Each stone a tongue, rough with decay,
Speaking truths that won’t stay.

Whisper.
Broken voices call.
Whisper.
Shadows rise, then fall.

Through moss and cracks, the voices press,
Soft murmurs of sorrow, confessions suppressed.
Here lies a thief who loved a song,
Here rests a heart that never belonged—
Interrupted lives, unraveled schemes,
Their tales bleed into sepia dreams.

And when the wind pulls through the graves,
The past begins to wake,
Not in screams or wails,
But in whispers only stone can make.

Words scatter,
Names that mattered.
Lives collide,
Carried by the tide.
Stone remembers,
But only in embers.

The soldier who fell before his time,
The child who drew stars in the dirt and grime.
The poet whose ink could never dry,
The dreamer who gazed at a boundless sky.
They linger here, between silence and breath,
Not in life, but not in death.

Whisper.
The stone won’t forget.
Whisper.
Their voices linger yet.

Cold gray hands, etched with time,
Their words entwined, quiet and sublime.
The stones, they speak, when the living forget,
A chorus of whispers, their songs not done yet.

The Girl Who Is Forever October

The old house never forgets,
Baptized in leaves, wrapped in mist.
Lays me down on cinnamon sheets,
Whispers secrets through the trees.
Polaroids taped to the ceiling,
Frozen faces caught in time.
I found my courage in picture books,
Now I watch you from the other side.

And I will remain,
The girl who is forever October.
Crisp air, lost days,
Footsteps fading in the clover.
When the wind calls your name,
Will you still remember?
Or will I stay—
The girl who is forever October?

You stood by the Northern Woods,
Gas station bus stop ghosts.
Ice creeping into the cracks,
Your blood would freeze before you spoke.
Do you still smell the ruins,
From that cold dark brute day?
Not a comfort, not a shelter,
Just a place that locked away.

And I will remain,
The girl who is forever October.
Crisp air, lost days,
Footsteps fading in the clover.
When the wind calls your name,
Will you still remember?
Or will I stay—
The girl who is forever October?

I thought the empty tree sorrow
Would go away when spring arrived.
But the house holds on like a promise,
Like a name carved deep inside.
The scent of gourds, the slicing knives,
My sad smile carved in the light.
Autumn rain in pointed steps,
Tapping dances through the night.

And I will remain,
The girl who is forever October.
Crisp air, lost days,
Footsteps fading in the clover.
When the wind calls your name,
Will you still remember?
Or will I stay—
The girl who is forever October?

Undersong

I am the bullet, heat-seeking the soft points,
I am the sidewalk, taking every fall.
Romanced by flak and pale moon sorrows,
I make you sweat your life away.

You don’t have to love me,
You just have to know I’m here.
The road keeps winding, the night keeps calling,
And the past is always near.

I am the prodigal son who loves hard things,
I am the long yearn of abandoned steel.
Pushing shoulders with metallic strength,
In throbbing infinities of cold small stars.

You don’t have to love me,
You just have to know I’m here.
The road keeps winding, the night keeps calling,
And the past is always near.

Down in the iron trough of my days,
All there is, is me.
And what I offer is only love,
But love is never free.

I am the ember, the last glow of something lost,
I am the whisper through a payphone line.
Every road leads to the same horizon,
But not every soul gets there in time.

You don’t have to love me,
You just have to know I’m here.
The road keeps winding, the night keeps calling,
And the past is always near.

Cross-Legged & Thornless

I’ve been to the place
where missionary zeal
once punched your hands,
how much it resembles
my hometown lost in the war

I can still dream of things eternal.
More dark hours, yet no sign of life.
More dark hours, yet no sign of life.

the plateau knows
what great burden
has been lifted from your head
and sends infinity seeping
through my hair,
out here amongst
uncounted pieces of silver,

I can still dream of things eternal.
More dark hours, yet no sign of life.
More dark hours, yet no sign of life.
More dark hours, yet no sign of life.

I must be late for my resurrection,
but it’s too dry for a virgin birth
to occur anyway

Rain Falls Slow

In my world at the end of the world
the rain falls slow today,
as slow as needles break with pointed firs.
Half in the woods past gnawed off fences,
into the heart of the stillness, black as a crow,
the moss lies thick on cobbled stones

Half in the woods, where fences fray,
Into the stillness, shadows stay.
Moss remembers what stones can’t tell,
And the rain falls slow, where silence fell.

Rain falls slow,
Through the firs, through the stone.
Needles pierce where I am known.
Rain falls slow,
On a blackened life, on a faded name,
Every drop whispers the same.

And the rain falls slow through firs
on that loneliness made of hidden light,
slow on the black life I lead.
By the pond where creatures come to die,
I sit on fallen logs black as bitter chocolate
and dream of scents of oxeye daisies.

By the pond where endings lie,
Dreams dissolve beneath the sky.
Each drop a story, a whispered trace,
The rain falls slow on a forgotten place.

Rain falls slow,
On the world where silence grows.
Through the light, through the pain,
Rain falls slow, like a lingering chain.

Rain falls slow,
On the world where silence grows.
Through the light, through the pain,
Rain falls slow.

In my world at the end of the world
days pale envelopes under receding blue
until the snapping of a stick breaks the silence.
On the porch at night, where rain falls slow,
I listen to the eldritch owl that tells of places
where we would not be again.

On the porch where the darkness hums,
An owl speaks truths we can’t outrun.
The rain falls slow, the echoes stay,
Of lives we lost along the way.

Rain falls slow,
Through the cracks of what I know.
On the loss, on the trace,
Rain falls slow,
like it’s never displaced.

Gone Fishing

Monotonous mornings, blank nothing drifts by
The lawn sprinkler leaves crosswords, but the clues don’t align The ice cream man sits still, his hand on the wheel
And my window stays open, though it’s meant to seal

But love, yeah, love took the easy way out
Through the front door, gone without a doubt
Left me with silence, the air thick and dry
And the open window, just watching time pass by

Summer fades softly, in colors that blur
I sit with the crosswords, but no answers occur
Sometimes I wonder if love might return
But I know it’s gone, with nothing left to burn

'Cause love, yeah, love took the easy way out
Through the front door, gone without a doubt
Left me with stillness, the quiet and gray
And the open window, just watching love slip away

Yeah, love took the easy way,
Left me here with the blankness of day
The lawn sprinkler’s clues washed out in the rain
Just me and this window, waiting in vain.

What The Lantern Sees When The Fog Recedes

The lantern swings on the bow tonight,
A solitary, fragile light.
Through choking mist and whispers low,
It leads where none would choose to go.
The fog embraces the world in gray,
Hiding paths where shadows play.
But in its glow, faint shapes appear,
Stories lost to time and fear.

What the lantern sees when the fog recedes,
Are echoes of lives and forgotten deeds.
The ghosts of moments, the faces they wore,
Drifting like tides to an unseen shore.

A shipwreck looms with a silent cry,
Its sails dissolved, its mast awry.
The lantern trembles, its light laid bare,
Upon the wreckage of dreams once there.
It glimpses the towns left to decay,
The lives swept under progress’s sway.
Factories sigh where meadows once grew,
Their iron towers piercing the blue.

What the lantern sees when the fog recedes,
Are cities consumed by their endless needs.
The bones of beauty, the cost of the chase,
Left to rust in the fog’s embrace.

Does the lantern mourn the tales it reveals?
Does its flicker betray how deeply it feels?
Or is it a witness, impartial and still,
Shedding light on the scars we conceal?
Its glow is steady, its warmth resigned,
But what it uncovers stays etched in time.
The fog may lift, but shadows remain,
Etched in the glow of its fleeting flame.

The lantern dims as the fog returns,
Its flame still flickers, its purpose burns.
It cannot forget the lives it has known,
What the lantern sees, it sees alone.